LOCAL GOVERNMENT.

In the Middle Ages
the main organ of local government within the town
was the lord's court. The Abbot of Tewkesbury,
however, also exercised extensive privileges, so that
there was an interweaving of jurisdictions; and the
existence of some of the features of a corporate
borough before 1575, when the town achieved
corporate status in law, made local government more
complex. The borough corporation, succeeding to
the title of the lords of Tewkesbury, had unusually
full franchises, and had its own court of Quarter
Sessions. The facts that the borough covered, from
1610, the whole area of the parish, and that the
bailiffs, burgesses, and commonalty of the town had
bought the abbey church from the Crown, also gave
the borough more influence than it would otherwise
have had in matters that belonged properly to the
parish.

Seignorial government, liberties, and
customs. The manor of Tewkesbury included the
whole area of the liberty or hundred of Tewkesbury.
The inhabitants of the town did not attend the court
of the liberty, called Tewkesbury manor court,
though the inhabitants of the Mythe and Southwick
did. (fn. 1) There was a separate court for the town,
called Tewkesbury borough court, which also had
view of frankpledge. Rolls of only two sessions of
that court are known to survive, for the views of
1532 and 1533, (fn. 2) but the court continued to serve as
the borough's court of record; draft rolls survive for
1698–1704, 1730–69, (fn. 3) and 1809–52. (fn. 4) In 1532–3 the
court received presentments of offensive trading and
of the conferring of the freedom of the borough; it
heard pleas of trespass and debt; and it appointed
officers, 2 bailiffs, 2 constables, 2 serjeants, 2 meatinspectors (cardavatores), and 2 ale-conners. (fn. 5)

The Earls of Gloucester claimed extensive
franchises in Tewkesbury, (fn. 6) but only because
Tewkesbury was part of the liberty, and the earl's
franchises were no wider in the town than in the
hundred of Tewkesbury. (fn. 7) The abbots of Tewkesbury, however, claimed special jurisdiction in their
Tewkesbury estates — view of frankpledge, waif,
infangtheof, and toll in right of a grant by Robert
FitzHamon, and quittance of shire and hundred in
right of a charter of Henry I. (fn. 8) In 1273, in answer
to the question whether the abbot had imprisonment
and judgement of thieves in his fee, it was said that
he ought to have the imprisonment and judgement of
all his men in the town; (fn. 9) in 1287 one-third of the
town belonged to the abbot's fee, and he had two
views of frankpledge there. (fn. 10) The conflict of jurisdictions is likely to have been considerable; in 1540
a serjeant-at-mace for the abbey fee was appointed,
in addition to those appointed in the borough court,
to keep the peace. (fn. 11) The abbot's barton in 1540
included a prison for transgressors within the abbey's
fee. (fn. 12) A prison in Tewkesbury mentioned in 1287 (fn. 13)
was presumably the town prison. In 1547 the prison
of the hundred was in the building called the earl's
barton that gave its name to Barton Street. (fn. 14)

The Abbot of Tewkesbury's court for his manor
of Tewkesbury Barton was mentioned in 1535, (fn. 15) and
rolls survive for 1545 and 1546. (fn. 16) Of the other
manors in the parish, Lord Craven's manor of the
Mythe had a court at the court house there in 1652, (fn. 17)
but no rolls are known to survive.

The customs of the borough derived from
privileges granted to the burgesses in the 12th
century by Earls William and Robert; the privileges
were confirmed by Gilbert de Clare's charter of 1314
which was itself confirmed by royal charter of 1337.
They touched on tenure, trading, and courts: they
established the burgages as heritable and alienable
freeholds, quit of relief and heriot; they gave
freedom from tolls and the right to exclude outsiders
from the burgess community; and they made the
burgesses subject to their own borough court,
instead of to the hundred, with the right to nominate
bailiffs and tithingmen. (fn. 18) The burgesses owed the
lord certain customary dues: in addition to market
tolls, which amounted to between £2 and £4 a year
in the 14th century, there were customs called fulstale
or fynstall, which may have been connected with a
customary drinking, and stallage, for the right to
erect stalls at market-time. Fulstale and stallage
together produced up to £1 16s. in the 14th
century, (fn. 19) but in the 16th were represented by fixed
yearly payments of 1s. 7½d. and 2s. 4d. respectively.
The market tolls were then represented by a variable
yearly payment of under £1 called the toll of the
pyx. (fn. 20) In 1496 the Crown confirmed the town's
quittance of a custom called 'tensell', (fn. 21) the nature of
which is not clear. (fn. 22) In 1519 the town's status as
ancient demesne was confirmed. (fn. 23)

The borough corporation. The privileges
granted to the burgesses in the 12th century,
especially those of having their own court, of being
able to exclude outsiders, and of appointing officers
or representatives, which are mentioned above, are
the first indications that the town had a kind of
corporate character in the centuries before it
achieved corporate status in 1575. In the early 16th
century it was said that the town had collected and
enjoyed the market tolls given by King John for the
repair of the Long Bridge. (fn. 24) From 1201 to 1208 the
rents and dues of the town, then paid to the Crown,
were a fixed yearly sum of £12 described as the farm
of the borough, (fn. 25) but from 1208 to 1211 the sum
was £16 a year and was said to be for assized rents. (fn. 26)
Perhaps in the 14th century and certainly in the late
15th and early 16th what the lords of the town
received for tolls was only part of what the traders
in the market paid. (fn. 27) For the collection and expenditure of income the town had officers in the form of
the bailiffs mentioned in the 12th-century privileges.
In 1235 the Crown addressed a mandate to the
bailiffs of Tewkesbury, (fn. 28) and the two bailiffs
frequently witnessed deeds about property in the
neighbourhood. (fn. 29) It is not clear whether in addition
to the bailiffs there was any corporate or representative body outside the borough court, in which the
bailiffs and other officers were appointed; (fn. 30) grants of
protection to the burgesses and commonalty of
Tewkesbury (fn. 31) and of pavage to the bailffs and good
men of Tewkesbury, (fn. 32) and a reference to the common
chest of the bailiffs and burgesses, (fn. 33) show either that
there was such a body or that the borough court was
in many of its functions independent of the lord
and his steward. In the early 16th century the
bailiffs, burgesses, and inhabitants claimed that
certain of them, called 'tensiall men', had held the
borough with its liberties and franchises at fee
farm. (fn. 34) It is to be noted, however, that Tewkesbury
was not described as a borough in 1316 (fn. 35) and was
not taxed as a borough.

In 1575, at the request of the Earl of Leicester, (fn. 36)
the Crown granted Tewkesbury its first charter of
incorporation, partly on the grounds that the
existing borough officers could not execute their
duties within the abbey fee in the town. The charter
established a common council comprising the two
bailiffs and 12 principal burgesses named in the
charter, a self-renewing body that was to make bylaws to govern the tradesmen and other inhabitants
of the town. The bailiffs were to hold a court of
record every Friday for pleas of debt up to 40s. The
bounds of the borough were defined — roughly, the
area bounded by the Mill Avon, the Carrant brook,
the eastern boundary of the parish, and the road to
Ashchurch and the River Swilgate — and the first
town clerk was appointed. (fn. 37) In addition to the
bailiffs and the town clerk, the burgesses chose from
among their own number a chamberlain (there were
two until 1580) to act as treasurer, gave the Earl of
Leicester the title of high steward, and employed
intermittently a beadle of beggars. The borough
corporation did not acquire the manor of Tewkesbury and the lordship of the town until 1610, but the
burgesses appear to have assumed the functions of
the former borough court, and the officers which
that court had once elected were chosen by the
common council; not only constables and serjeants
but also churchwardens and surveyors were
regarded as borough officials. (fn. 38)

From James I the town received two charters. The
first, in 1605, confirmed the former incorporation
and the former liberties, and raised the number of
principal burgesses from 12 to 24 and the limit for the
borough court of record from 40s. to £30. The
borough was to have custody of orphans and, more
important, a separate coroner and sessions of the
peace, the justices being the two bailiffs and two
others of the principal burgesses. (fn. 39)

James's second charter to the town, in 1610, (fn. 40)
greatly enlarged the franchises. It was granted on the
same day as the sale to the town of the manor and
borough of Tewkesbury. (fn. 41) The charter of 1610
added to the 24 principal burgesses a body of 24
assistant burgesses, increased the number of justices
from four to six, with an inhibition to the county
justices from intermeddling in the affairs of the
town or parish, and raised the limit for the court of
record to £50. The borough was to have a gaol, in
the keeping of the bailiffs, a free school, (fn. 42) and the
power to press and to train and muster within the
borough. For the first time the borough was to be
represented in parliament. (fn. 43)

The charter of 1610 also enlarged the borough to
extend over the whole hundred and liberty of
Tewkesbury. Although that was comparable with the
way in which other boroughs, such as Gloucester,
included within their legal bounds large rural areas,
the authority and jurisdiction of the borough council
and officers outside the confines of the parish of
Tewkesbury were nebulous and never clearly
established. The extent of the borough as defined in
1610 was confirmed by charters of 1686 and 1698,
but the charter of 1686 went to the length of adding
to the borough the village of Walton Cardiff, (fn. 44) which
was already in the hundred and therefore, in theory,
in the borough. In 1700 an action of trespass at
Bourton-on-the-Hill was heard in the borough court
of record, and judgement was given and executed;
similar actions from remote parts of the hundred
were also heard in the same court, but the borough
corporation did not maintain that geographical
breadth of jurisdiction. (fn. 45) No evidence has been found
that Tewkesbury tried in other ways to exercise its
jurisdiction as a borough outside the parish, for
example in training militia (fn. 46) or excluding the county
justices: its claim to the lordship of a manor of
Bourton-on-the-Hill (fn. 47) was a matter of tenure, not of
jurisdiction, and the rights claimed in the parishes of
Tewkesbury hundred in the 18th and 19th centuries
derived from the leet jurisdiction of the hundred
court, which was the property of the borough. (fn. 48) It
was difficult enough for the borough to preserve its
rights in the rural parts of Tewkesbury parish,
where in the late 17th century the county justices
successfully levied a rate. (fn. 49) Despite the wording of
the charters, from the early 18th century the effective
bounds of the borough were the bounds of the
parish.

The Tewkesbury sessions of the peace survived
into the mid-20th century. (fn. 50) The recorder, whose
office was established by the charter of 1698, was
added to the six justices, of whom two were the
bailiffs, (fn. 51) of the earlier charters. In 1716 an assize
judge said that the Tewkesbury justices in Quarter
Sessions ought not to continue to hear appeals, on
questions of parochial liability, between Tewkesbury
and other parishes. (fn. 52) The gaol which the borough
was allowed to have under the charter of 1610 was
kept from 1612 (fn. 53) in the lower part of the belfry
tower that stood north of the abbey church, (fn. 54) which
in 1582 the justices had ordered should be adapted
as a house of correction for half the county. (fn. 55) In 1621
one of the serjeants at mace undertook the keeping
of the gaol and gave security to the bailiffs, an
unprecedented step, for his doing so. (fn. 56) By 1734
there was a separate office of keeper of the gaol. (fn. 57)
The use of the prison may not have been continuous,
for in 1674 the gaoler of the county gaol at Gloucester
was ordered to receive no more prisoners from
Tewkesbury because Tewkesbury had refused to
contribute towards the maintenance of prisoners in
the county gaol and the Crown prisons, although it
had so contributed until a few years before. (fn. 58) In
1704 the belfry was still being used as the town
gaol, (fn. 59) and it continued to be so until 1816 when a
new gaol in Bredon Road was built under an Act of
1813. (fn. 60) A treadmill was in use in the new gaol in
1828; (fn. 61) in 1830 82 people were committed to the
gaol, and 235 in the year 1836–7; (fn. 62) at the census of
1841 there were 11 inmates. (fn. 63) The gaol was closed
in 1854, and from then prisoners from Tewkesbury
went to the county gaol at Gloucester. (fn. 64)

The function of the 24 assistants to be elected
under the charter of 1610 is not altogether clear.
In 1639 a by-law stated that the assistants were to
have equal voices with the principal burgesses in
most matters, but not in elections or in other matters
committed by charter to the principal burgesses. (fn. 65)
The charter of 1686 replaced the bailiffs, 24 principal
burgesses, and 24 assistants with a mayor and 12
aldermen, but the charter of 1698 restored the
earlier arrangement, the bailiffs and 24 principal
burgesses forming the common council. (fn. 66) Having
no precise function, the office of assistant was
superfluous, but before it fell into disuse it had
become customary for the principal burgesses to be
chosen from among the assistants, and when, from
the mid-18th century, there had ceased to be a body
of assistants, men chosen as principal burgesses were
sworn as assistants immediately before being sworn
as principal burgesses. (fn. 67)

The borough corporation regulated the trade of
the town not only through its control of the markets
and fairs but also through the authority it exercised
over the guilds or companies (fn. 68) and through its power
to admit to the freedom of the borough, without
which it was illegal to follow a trade in the town.
In 1639 a by-law was made that no one was to live
in the town more than a month unless he were a
freeman. The qualifications for freedom were
inheritance, by the son born first after the father
had become a freeman, or completed apprenticeship,
or purchase. The corporation also conferred the
freedom gratis on some distinguished people. In the
late 17th century the corporation attracted particular
trades to the town by limiting its right to grant the
freedom of the borough to other people of those
trades. Despite its indebtedness, the corporation does
not appear to have exploited the freedom as a source
of revenue, although it was resolved in 1639 that no
stranger should be allowed to buy his freedom for
under 20s. (fn. 69)

By its purchase of the manor and borough in 1610
the corporation incurred large debts. Part was
represented by a 'great bond' of £1,500 to a Mr.
Ferrers, which was redeemed in 1614 (fn. 70) apparently
by the sale to William Ferrers of the reversion of
Severn Ham. (fn. 71) Even so, in 1617 Eleanor Hatch,
daughter and administratrix of John Barston, a
former town clerk who had borrowed £1,800 at the
request of the corporation, was imprisoned for debt
and compelled to assure lands of her own to a
creditor, while the corporation declined to make any
recompense. (fn. 72)

In 1620 three of the principal burgesses and
assistants, who presumably observed Saturday as
the Sabbath of the Old Testament, (fn. 73) were warned
that they would be removed from office if they
would not acknowledge the Fourth Commandment,
and one of them failed to make such acknowledgement. (fn. 74) In 1662, under the Corporation Act, the
Lord Lieutenant of the county removed from office
13 members of the corporation, including one of
the bailiffs, and also the town clerk, and replaced
them with his own nominees. (fn. 75)

During the Civil War the town's charter had been
lost, and the corporation, having failed to get a
renewal of the charter in 1658, (fn. 76) was anxious about
the security of its legal status until an exemplification
was obtained in 1672. (fn. 77) In 1686 the charter was
surrendered and a new one granted. (fn. 78) After the
Revolution the town continued for some months to
be governed under the charter of 1686: the surrender
of the former charter had been enrolled and was in
theory not annulled by James II's Proclamation of
1688. Town government, however, was subject to
confusion and disputes, (fn. 79) and appears to have lost
its effectiveness in 1689 or 1690. (fn. 80) A warrant for a
new charter was issued in 1695, (fn. 81) and the charter
was granted in 1698. (fn. 82)

In 1734 the number of officers of the corporation
suggests that utility was already yielding to ceremonial pomp. Draft court rolls list the lord high
steward, under-steward, two bailiffs, two bailiffs
elect, recorder, deputy recorder, principal burgesses
and assistants, four constables, bailiff of the hundred,
two serjeants at mace, keeper of the gaol, beadle, and
water-bailiff. (fn. 83) Apart from these officers, the town
clerk, chamberlain, and coroner (fn. 84) were not listed
presumably because they had no function in the
borough court, though they were more active in
running the affairs of the town than most of those
who were listed. In the mid-18th century a town
crier signed the charity accounts along with other
officers of the manor, borough, and parish. (fn. 85)

The income of the corporation at that period
came largely from tolls, which yielded nearly £200
a year. It was greatly reduced in the early 19th
century when the corporation lost the right to
collect tolls on the whole quantities of corn sold in
the market by sample, and the cost of the successive
legal proceedings about that right had put the
corporation heavily in debt. (fn. 86) In 1828 the debt
amounted to £6,000, compared with an annual
income of little over £20. The creditors then agreed
to accept a settlement of 6s. 8d. in the £, and £2,000
was advanced on the security of a mortgage by John
Edmund Dowdeswell, recorder and M.P. for the
borough. (fn. 87) From 1781 to 1837 attempts were made
to exploit the financial possibilities of reviving the
borough corporation's leet jurisdiction as lord of
Tewkesbury manor and hundred. Courts were held
until 1852 for the borough and until 1850 for what
was then described as Barton hundred, but the
effectiveness of the courts, both as organs of local
government and as sources of income, appears to
have been negligible. (fn. 88) The chief property of the
corporation, comprising the market house and the
12 houses in the Bull Ring called Gloucester Place,
had already been let on long leases. In 1830 the
corporation's income, derived mainly from tolls on
livestock sold in the fairs and markets, was barely
sufficient to pay the salaries of the officers. (fn. 89) By 1835
the town clerk's salary (excluding fees of less than
£100 a year) had been reduced from £35 to £10, the
chamberlain's was £8, and the serjeants at mace, who
received small fees, each got a salary of 5 guineas. (fn. 90)

Street Commissioners. In 1786 an Improvement
Act appointed a body of street commissioners for the
town, whose functions in maintaining and lighting
the streets and in removing nuisances and encroachments (fn. 91) overlapped those of the borough court
and the corporation. The need for such an Act may
indicate the ineffectiveness of the existing institutions, but it does not seem that the street commissioners, whose authority did not extend to the
Mythe, Southwick, and Oldbury field, were much
more effective: (fn. 92) although watching was included
among their powers, an ad hoc committee was
established to employ and supervise a watch. (fn. 93) In the
early 19th century vacancies in the commission were
seldom filled and attendance was poor: though there
was provision for more than 80 commissioners there
were only 21 in 1847, and often too few attended to
achieve the quorum of five. (fn. 94) In 1847 and 1848 the
commissioners increased their own numbers, (fn. 95) and
they tried to initiate improvements, (fn. 96) but without, it
seems, much success. In 1850 they spent a little over
£400 a year on lighting, scavenging, and repairing
streets and culverts, and employed a surveyor at £12
and a clerk at £10 a year. (fn. 97) In 1848 there had been a
proposal that the town council should adopt the
Public Health Act, (fn. 98) and the functions of the street
commissioners came to an end in 1850 when the
council acquired the powers of a local board of
health. (fn. 99)

Parish government and poor relief. In the late
17th century the parish officers included 4 churchwardens and 4 overseers of the poor, (fn. 100) and there
were 4 churchwardens in 1723. (fn. 101) In 1758 there were
2 churchwardens and 4 overseers, (fn. 102) and in the same
period there were also 4 surveyors of highways. (fn. 103)
The churchwardens and surveyors were treated in
the town's by-laws of 1608 as officers of the borough
corporation, (fn. 104) and the relief and supervision of the
poor were functions of the borough. In 1623 the
corporation made regulations to restrict overcrowding and a consequent increase in the number
of poor, and the duty of the beadle of beggars
appointed in 1616 was to keep vagabonds out of
the town. (fn. 105) About 1630 it was alleged that the poor
in Tewkesbury numbered over 500, (fn. 106) and a great
increase in the number in 1638 and 1639 gave rise
to a new regulation, that the name of a pauper might
not be entered in the poor book, to qualify him for
relief, without the assent of three of the borough
bailiffs and justices and three of the churchwardens
and overseers. In 1650 or 1651 the bailiffs procured
from Lord Coventry £200 to be a permanent stock
for setting the poor to work. (fn. 107)

In 1724 the vestry resolved that the parish might
establish a workhouse, refusal to enter which would
disqualify a pauper from relief, (fn. 108) but no record of a
workhouse before the middle of the century has
been found. In 1756, following a resolution that a
workhouse was absolutely necessary, the vestry
ordered that a house in Millbank offered by Sir
William Strachan should be fitted up as a workhouse,
and a contract for its keeping was made with Richard
Allen, a glover. (fn. 109) The name Workhouse Alley, off
Barton Street, recorded in 1849, (fn. 110) alludes to another
workhouse, but whether it was in use before or after
the one set up in 1756 is not known. In 1792 an Act
of Parliament incorporated the 'guardians of the
poor', a body composed of the leading inhabitants,
from whom were to be chosen nine 'directors of the
poor', who were entrusted with all the functions of
poor relief. Under the Act (fn. 111) a new workhouse was
begun in 1792 or 1793 (fn. 112) and completed in 1796. (fn. 113)
It is a large red-brick building, south of Holm
Bridge, which ceased to be a home for old people in
1955 and became simply a hospital. (fn. 114)

The inmates of the workhouse worked at stockingknitting in the early 19th century, (fn. 115) but the sale of
their work produced little in proportion to the
expenses of the poor: £119 in 1803 (fn. 116) compared with
total expenses — which had been under £200 in
1723 and under £700 in 1768 — of more than
£2,000. (fn. 117) In 1802–3 regular outside relief was given
to 93 people, 83 were in the workhouse, and 302
were occasionally relieved. (fn. 118) There were 77 people
in the workhouse in 1834, when in one week 233
heads of families received outside relief; it was then
said that outside relief was generally cheaper than
relief in the workhouse, and the directors of the poor
favoured giving relief in the form of a loan because
the recipient who failed to repay a loan was debarred
from applying for further relief for some time. (fn. 119) In
1833, when £3,143 was spent on the poor, the
highest figure for 12 years, (fn. 120) the increase was
attributed to an outbreak of cholera. (fn. 121) In 1835
the parish became part of the Tewkesbury Poor
Law Union, (fn. 122) to which the workhouse was sold in
1837. (fn. 123)

The reformed borough. The Municipal Corporations Act left Tewkesbury with a borough
corporation comprising a mayor, aldermen, and
councillors, numbering 16 in all, with authority over
an area coextensive with the parish. A borough
Quarter Sessions was granted in 1836, and there
were eight justices apart from the recorder, mayor,
and ex-mayor. The town gaol and exemption from
county rates also survived reform. (fn. 124) The responsibilities of the town council were increased in 1850
when an Act of Parliament gave the council the
powers of a local board of health. (fn. 125) The borough
Quarter Sessions were abolished under the Justices
of the Peace Act of 1949, (fn. 126) and the office of borough
coroner in 1965. The town clerk became a full-time
officer in 1944. (fn. 127) In 1964 the corporation was
responsible for housing, the cemetery, water-supply,
and sewage disposal, and it ran a children's
swimming-pool and a museum. (fn. 128) Those and services
provided by other bodies are outlined below.

Public services and public health. For a
considerable period the River Avon served as
Tewkesbury's chief water-supply and as its chief
sewer. Reference to a stone-walled part of the Avon's
bank in 1557 as the 'waterdrawyng' shows that
water was being taken from the river, (fn. 129) as it was for
domestic use in 1850 by those many households
which had no well, were far from the three public
pumps, and could not beg from neighbours. A report
of 1850 describes in detail the way in which water
was taken in cooking vessels from below the point
where sewage was drained into the river. (fn. 130) The
borough council, as local board of health, supplied
water from the works (fn. 131) built for Cheltenham
Borough at the Mythe Bridge in the 1870's. (fn. 132) By
1921 piped water want to 900 out of 1,173 houses in
the parish, the remainder getting their water from
wells generally not suitable for drinking purposes. (fn. 133)

The by-laws made by the corporation in 1608
included regulations, seemingly of no great efficacy,
for the disposal of refuse. (fn. 134) The first drainage system
in the town was built between 1825 and 1831, but
the sewage ran untreated into the Swilgate, which
had not enough water, and the Avon, which passed
close by many of the houses and from which
drinking-water was taken. In addition the greater
part of the town, and particularly the courts and
alleys, remained undrained. (fn. 135) Nearly one-fifth of the
alleys, containing nearly 200 houses, had no privies,
and the condition of all of them was said to be
'exceedingly filthy and unwholesome'. (fn. 136) The
borough council afterwards began to improve
conditions and built a sewage works by Lower Lode
Lane, below the confluence of the Swilgate and the
Mill Avon. (fn. 137) Another works was built at Newtown,
but the whole sewerage system was essentially
evolved from that started in the early 19th century.
In the 1940's conditions were described as 'appalling'. (fn. 138) Later, improvements were made, and new
sewage works by Lower Lode Lane provided for the
whole town.

The insanitary conditions of the town in the 19th
century and earlier, in which overcrowding combined
with a damp, low-lying situation and the problems
of water-supply and drainage, made Tewkesbury an
unhealthy town. In the early 16th century an
epidemic or 'great death then reigning in the town'
made it necessary to double the amount normally
spent out of a charitable endowment on finding a
priest, presumably to bury the dead. (fn. 139) Thirty people
died from an epidemic in 1578, but 560 in 1591–2.
There were minor epidemics in 1593 and 1598, and
in 1604 plague allegedly brought up the river from
Bristol by trowmen (fn. 140) was credited with the deaths
of 31 out of 51 people buried between February and
May. (fn. 141) In 1624 the bailiffs, who in 1579 had put
suspected houses in quarantine, (fn. 142) established a pesthouse in Oldbury field and limited to under 20 the
deaths from what had threatened to be a severe
outbreak. (fn. 143) Many deaths from fever were recorded in
the years 1727–9, and in 1741 (fn. 144) and 1758 there were
outbreaks of smallpox. (fn. 145) In 1832 a board of health
was formed to counter a threatened attack of cholera;
when the disease reached the town the board
established a temporary hospital in the Oldbury and
set up soup-kitchens; 76 people died. (fn. 146) Another
cholera epidemic killed 54 people in 1849. (fn. 147) The
next year the inspector of the General Board of
Health noted the unusually high death rate of the
town. (fn. 148)

A public dispensary was established in Tewkesbury in 1815, (fn. 149) and it survived (fn. 150) until the era of the
National Health Service. Its endowments, and those
of the trust for distributing dispensary tickets, under
the will of Charles William Grove (proved 1896),
were directed, by Schemes of 1954 and 1959, to the
general benefit of the sick poor. (fn. 151) A permanent
hospital, the Tewkesbury Rural Hospital, was
opened in the Oldbury in 1865, and treated 60
patients in its first year; (fn. 152) the number of beds rose
from 10 in 1885 to 26 in 1910. (fn. 153) It originated as a
voluntary hospital, and was placed under a joint
hospital board of the borough and Tewkesbury
Rural District that was established in 1910 (fn. 154) and
abolished in 1938. (fn. 155) In 1934 the building in the
Oldbury, which later became the municipal offices,
was replaced by a new building with 22 beds off
Barton Street. (fn. 156) In 1964 the Barton Street hospital,
called Tewkesbury Hospital, was used for acute
cases, while Holm Hospital — the former workhouse — had 65 beds for chronic cases; both
hospitals were under the Cheltenham Hospital
Group Management Committee. (fn. 157) By 1901 the
borough corporation had opened an isolation
hospital (fn. 158) in Gloucester Road, (fn. 159) which was replaced
in 1910 when the joint hospital board took over the
isolation hospital in Elmstone Hardwicke parish. (fn. 160)

In 1856 a burial board was formed for the parish
and opened the graveyard south of the town. (fn. 161) The
graveyard was enlarged from 8 a. to 16 a. in 1880 (fn. 162)
and includes a part for Roman Catholics. By 1935 the
borough council acted as burial board. (fn. 163) The abbey
church was closed for burials in 1855, its churchyard
in 1857, and Holy Trinity church and churchyard
in 1867. (fn. 164)

The borough by-laws of 1608 provided that the
principal burgesses, innkeepers, taverners, chandlers,
and victuallers should hang lights outside their
houses every winter evening when there was no
moon. (fn. 165) The street commissioners set up in 1786
were responsible for lighting the streets, (fn. 166) and after
the formation of the Tewkesbury Gas Light Co. in
1832 (fn. 167) the streets were first lit by gas in 1833. (fn. 168) In
1850, however, only one of the alleys had a lamp
and few more than 100 houses were connected with
the gas mains. (fn. 169) The gas company, with its works at
the north end of Oldbury Road, was formally merged
with the Cheltenham Gas Co. Ltd. in 1931. (fn. 170) The
borough council was empowered to generate and
supply electricity by an Act of 1905, (fn. 171) but three years
later it transferred the undertaking to the Tewkesbury Electric Light Company, (fn. 172) which became a
subsidiary of the Shropshire, Worcestershire &
Staffordshire Electric Power Co. (fn. 173) In 1921 the
electricity works were beside the Mill Avon behind
St. Mary's Lane. (fn. 174)

For police purposes the town was divided in 1596
into five wards; Bridge ward, Church ward, and
Barton ward each had a petty constable in charge,
while St. Mary's ward had two and Middle ward
was under the direct supervision of two high
constables. (fn. 175) The division into wards survived until
the end of the 17th century at least, (fn. 176) and in 1672
there were apparently still two high constables. (fn. 177)
By 1734, however, there were four constables; (fn. 178)
they were concerned only with the town, for the
tithings of the Mythe and Southwick had their own
tithingmen (in the 16th century) (fn. 179) or constables (in
the 17th). (fn. 180) In 1831 a public meeting in the town
appointed a committee empowered to maintain, by
subscription, a paid constabulary that was to keep
watch at night during winter. (fn. 181) Under the Municipal
Corporations Act the town council established a
police force, and in 1839 provided a police station in
the enlarged town hall. (fn. 182) In 1850 the watch committee employed an inspector and four constables. (fn. 183)
The force was merged with the county constabulary
in 1869, (fn. 184) and the police station was moved to the
former town gaol in Bredon Road, (fn. 185) which was converted for use as a police station in 1882–3. (fn. 186)

The borough corporation, which in 1608 had made
by-laws for the prevention of fires, (fn. 187) acquired a fireengine in 1734 as a gift from Viscount Gage. (fn. 188)
Whether or not the corporation was effective as a
fire-fighting authority, in 1756 two fire-engines were
bought by subscription, (fn. 189) and engines and other
equipment were apparently maintained and replaced
when necessary by subscription until 1836, when
they were placed under the care and control of the
town council. (fn. 190) In 1839 the council provided for a
fire-engine house in the enlarged town hall. (fn. 191) In the
late 19th century the fire station was in Sun Street, (fn. 192)
and afterwards in Mill Street, (fn. 193) in the former abbey
barton, until a new station was built for the county
fire service in 1951 on the site of the former theatre
in Oldbury Road. (fn. 194)

By 1964 the borough council had provided 744
houses and flats. (fn. 195) The children's swimming pool,
near the Swilgate Bridge, was opened by the
corporation in 1957; (fn. 196) the museum, in a timberframed house rebuilt in the 17th century (fn. 197) (No. 64
Barton Street), which contains a collection that bears
mainly on the history of Tewkesbury and the
neighbourhood, was opened in 1960. (fn. 198) A post office
was established in the town, in High Street, by
1820. (fn. 199)

Seals and insignia of the borough. A deed of
1651 bears an impression, poorly made and broken,
of the borough seal, circular, 1¼ in. in diameter, with
the legend, only partly legible,
SIGILLUM COMMUNE BURG . . .
TEUKESBURY
in humanistic lettering, and the device of an embattled gateway flanked by turrets. (fn. 200) Impressions are
recorded of a circular seal in use in the reign of
Charles II, with an engrailed cross in the centre and
the legend
SIGILLUM OFFICII BURGI DE
TEWKESBURIA
in roman lettering, and of a smaller but similar seal
with the same device on a shield and the legend
SIGILLUM OFFICII BURGI DE
TEWKESBURY
which was in use in 1797. (fn. 201) Between the periods
when those seals were used, in 1698, 1737, and 1785,
the borough seal was a circular one, 21/8 in. in
diameter, bearing as a device an embattled gateway
flanked by turrets and with the legend in roman
letters
COMUNE SIGILLUM BALLIVORUM
BURGENSIUM ET COMMUNITATIS
BURGI DE TEWKESBURY
The third, fourth, fifth, and sixth words of the
legend are larger and appear to have been inserted, (fn. 202)
suggesting that the matrix had been struck when the
bailiffs and burgesses were replaced by a mayor and
aldermen under the borough charter of 1686 and
altered when the offices of bailiffs and burgesses
were restored by the charter of 1698. (fn. 203) Although a
new seal with a similar device and the legend
MUNICIPII TEUKSBURIENSIS
COMMUNE SIGILLUM MDCCCXXXV
was acquired after municipal reform, possibly in
1837, (fn. 204) and used in 1859, (fn. 205) by 1882 the corporation
was using a circular seal 11/8 in. in diameter (fn. 206) with
the same device and legend as the seal used in 1698,
1737, and 1785, and by 1895 that seal itself was the
official seal of the borough. (fn. 207) Its matrix, then in the
town clerk's office, was not to be found in 1964. The
borough then had a stamp with a similar device and
legend.

Borough of Tewkesbury. Gules a cross engrailed or, on a chief per pale argent and gules a castle proper flying from each flanking turret a flag counter charged between two roses counter charged barbed and seeded proper. [Granted 1964]

The two town maces have the hall-marks for
1646–7; the crown of the smaller mace is later than
the mace itself, and may have replaced the original
crown when both maces were repaired in 1733. (fn. 208) In
1878 Capt. W. E. Price, who had been M.P. for
Tewkesbury for 10 years, gave the corporation a gold
mayoral chain and badge, the badge bearing the
embattled gateway that was represented on the seals
and regarded as the characteristic emblem of the
town. (fn. 209) The town bore no arms until 1964 when it
received a grant through the generosity of Sir George
Dowty. The arms include references to the abbey,
the town's seals, the battle of Tewkesbury, and (in
the crest, supporters, and compartment) to the preConquest origins of the town, Robert Dudley, Earl
of Leicester, Sir George Dowty, the Earls of
Coventry, the Dukes of Beaufort, and the rivers
Severn and Avon. (fn. 210)

22. Possibly 'tensell' is to be connected with 'tinsel' in its
meaning of loss or damage; or with 'tenser' — an inhabitant
who is not a freeman of the town — and 'tenserie' — a
payment paid to the lord for protection: O.E.D.

46. The inhabitants of the town in 1618 refused to be
mustered by the Lord Lieutenant, because they claimed
the right to be mustered by the bailiffs: Acts of P.C.
1618–19, 252; Cal. S.P. Dom. 1611–18, 599. In 1639 the
bailiffs asked leave to muster and train the inhabitants:
Hist. MSS. Com. 4th Rep. App. 317.

202. Tewkes. Boro. Recs., cordwainers' charter; Glos. R.O.
D 760/17; Worcs. R.O. 705:82/6 (BA 1553). A woodcut of
a similar seal, but with no variation in the size of the letters
of the legend, is in Visit. Glos. (priv. print. 1884), 215.

210. Programme of presentation of the arms by Sir George
Dowty [1964]. The cross engrailed that is associated with
the abbey is believed by some to be a 'cusped cross', a
form otherwise unknown, in which there is a single
lozenge-shaped swelling on each arm of the cross.
Representations of such a cross, on stone and glass in the
abbey church, give some support to the belief.